


Spectrum

by Spark_Writer



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Colors, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Sequential Vignettes, coming to terms with feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 06:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1377661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spark_Writer/pseuds/Spark_Writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Colour creates, enhances, changes, reveals, establishes...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

Sherlock cannot pinpoint the precise colour of his flatmate’s eyes.

In the beginning, they were dark, like drowning, and seemed endless, unfathomable. Over time they began to brighten to a cheerier shade, and that was when Sherlock contracted the unfortunate habit of staring into them, and getting angry at himself for staring into them, and not being able to stop staring into them, because there was something extraordinarily _not normal_ about John Watson’s eyes.

These days, they are still nothing short of impossible, the menagerie of tones always shifting and changing in a mocking, teasing dance. Like a frustrated home owner trying to identify the perfect hue of paint, Sherlock fusses and frets over the puzzle, gripping John’s stubbly chin at odd moments to shine a torch directly into his protesting face and murmuring a breathless jumble of possible shades—

“Aquamarine, azure, cornflower, navy, cerulean, blueberry—“

The good doctor laughs at that last one, his face crinkling in merriment. He pushes Sherlock’s torch aside.

“Don’t. I’m not finished.”

“Can’t you find something else to obsess over?”

“This isn't an obsession. It’s a riddle. One I am trying to get to the bottom of, so to speak.”

“Yes, alright. But my eyes hurt from the light.”

Sherlock switches the torch off, admiring for a moment the shadows nestled in the dips and hollows of John’s countenance.

“That’s better.” John rises from the armchair, his dominant hand brushing briefly (accidentally) against Sherlock’s thigh. “Bloody berk. What are you trying to get to the bottom off, anyway?”

“It’s not of importance,” is the perfunctory reply.

“Fine. Pretend I never asked.” John stumps off to his room, humming a funny little tune under his breath, the name of which Sherlock suspects he deleted years ago. His eyes linger on the ex-soldier’s retreating form, until he blinks himself back to the present and flies over to his laptop to plug his latest hypotheses into a half-finished spreadsheet.

 

It goes on like this for days, for weeks, for months.

 

Eventually, he decides there is only one colour even remotely close to the glistening swim of sapphire shot with amethyst in John’s eyes.

Indigo.

Dark enough that distant acquaintances and passers-by might mistake them for hazel, or brown. Clear and steady, yet foreboding in times of danger. Dazzling when sprinting down street after street at Sherlock’s side, luminous over heaps of take-away and Mrs Hudson’s biscuits, incandescent both in fury and in laughter.

Indigo. That vaguely forgotten colour.

(The darkening horizon just before it dips into the sea)

It's not a perfect match, but how can there be one?

How can one put a name to the dizzy tumble of blue living in John's irises?

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

“God _fucking_ damn it, Sherlock!”

John’s hands are on him, cradling his face, which is throbbing fiercely.

“You’re bleeding everywhere and you probably have a concussion and your skull has likely got a few fractures and some cranial fluid might leak into your nasal passage ways and—“

Sherlock moves to sit up.

“—No you don’t, stay exactly where you are; I’m calling 999. Bastard,” John mutters, in reference to the driver who flattened Sherlock on the pavement moments earlier. “You could’ve died.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Sherlock says, managing to conceal the glitter of pain in his occipital bone. “I would never die of something so pedestrian as a hit and run.”

He catches his reflection in the silvery exterior of John’s mobile and sees that he looks unflatteringly pale, almost translucent, with blood coursing down his cheek from a spectacular wound on his left brow bone.

“Here.” John rips off his coat then starts on his jumper, and Sherlock feels suddenly dizzy from blood loss, and also possibly because his flatmate has decided to strip in broad daylight. John divests himself of the jumper and presses the soft, oatmealy material into Sherlock’s hands. “Hold this to your cut.”

“No,” Sherlock protests. “These are practically…sub-Siberian temperatures. You’ll…” His vision flickers. “Get cold.”

“Shut up and do as I say.”

Sherlock huffs a sigh and presses the wool to his forehead. It’s oddly comforting.

“Ambulance’ll be here in a mo.’” John kneels at his side. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve just been hit by a car.”

John’s expression quavers and his eyes go funny. “Right then, just—stop talking. You’ll go into shock faster if you don’t.”

Sherlock fixes John with a hazy glare. “If you…insist.”

Carmine is the colour of his blood streaking John’s fingers and cheekbones:

Warpaint.

 


End file.
